Monday, December 19, 2005

[BNAT] Masters of Horror: "Sick Girl"

There are lots of reasons why I don't have premium cable. But I hate that not having those channels means I'm missing a lot of good stuff. Like Showtime's Masters of Horror series, in which great horror directors like Tobe Hooper and Dario Argento (and 11 others) have been invited to each make an hour-long movie to air on the network. We got to see two of these movies at BNAT this year, and "Sick Girl" was the first of them.

Lucky McKee (the amazing director of May, which played at BNAT 4) described this film as a "romantic comedy". Hee! That's kind of right. Angela Bettis (the amazingly talented star of May) plays Ida, an entymologist whose girlfriend just broke up with her because "the bug thing creeps [her] out". She decides to make the moves on a girl who's been hanging around the lobby of her lab building. Meanwhile, she gets a strange package containing a large, aggressive insect of a species she's never seen before. And all kinds of wackiness and grossness ensue. It's your basic girl-meets-girl, girl-dates-girl, girl-gets-bitten-by-huge-bug-and-becomes-impreganated story. :P

Some of my favorite horror films have a great comedic element. This film has some really great funny moments. One of my favorites is when Ida and her colleague are eating at a Chinese place. Ida finds a roach in her food, and instead of freaking out, she and the colleague very calmly examine it to see what kind it is. They discover that it's a species from China, and are thrilled to find that they're eating at a Chinese restaurant that serves actual Chinese food.